


Friends

by thecrownofthereveur



Series: Under Gotham's rainy sky [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Relationships, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2701082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecrownofthereveur/pseuds/thecrownofthereveur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Jim, I thought you should know…, that I consider us friends,’ Oswald said, sounding serious, not even the hint of a laugh.</p><p>Jim held the phone beside his face some additional seconds, a bit baffled by what he had just heard.</p><p>Friends?</p><p>How could Oswald Cobblepot possibly be his friend?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Gotham fanfic and english is not my first language so I apologize for any mistake you could find.
> 
> I fixed somethings with the tenses here and I changed some phrases for make it more understandable. Hope you like it.

When Jim Gordon went home that night, he was feeling devastated. He knew since the beginning what type of city Gotham was. He knew about the corruption and the mafia, about the beggars on the street and the murders committed every day without anyone doing anything to avoid it. He knew all that, and still he had truly believed that he was prepared for this, that he could make a difference. But he had never imagined how this game truly was, how the mafia and the police weren't any different, how they all wanted money and power. Not even a month had passed since he was transferred to Gotham’s police department, and he was already learning this.

Jim left his key in the bowl beside the door and walked to the kitchen looking for Barbara. She wasn’t in the apartment. Jim found a note in the fridge, written in Barbara’s glamorous script: ‘I went out with some friends, I will be back by ten o’clock. Love you’. Next to the message, Barbara had drawn a smiley face. Jim felt the beginning of a smile in his own face, but just the beginning. Then he went to the living room to pour a glass of whiskey. He needed to relax, to lie down for a while. He started by taking off his suit jacket and his tie, and they were followed by his shoes and his dress shirt. When he was just in pants and a slight shirt he sat on his bed with the glass of whiskey in his hand. He thought, just for a moment, about how good a massage would feel right now.

Today Jim Gordon had been assigned to kill a man.

A skinny, funny guy dressed in a cheap suit. His name, Jim believed, was Oswald Cobblepot, and he was to be killed for being a snitch. Jim remembered seeing his smiley face in the alley behind Fish Money’s club. He remembered, too, seeing his scared expression looking at Gordon, pleading, speaking about war and murders; desperate for a chance to live.

_‘There’s a war coming.’_

Jim closed his eyes at the memory of the shaking voice of the man.

_‘There will be chaos, rivers of blood in the street, I know it!’_

Was it true?

The war Cobblepot had predicted?

Jim didn’t want to think about it. Instead he sipped from his glass.

He had let Cobblepot live. He told him to never come back to Gotham. Maybe that would work, if no one knew the man was alive. Jim would be capable of staying alive in this city without being a killer. Maybe. Then, for no reason in particular, Jim thought about Cobblepot’s body falling to the water. Was he all right? He suddenly asked himself, was he able to swim to the shore? Did he know how to swim? Jim sipped again from the whiskey, remembering Cobblepot’s bad leg, limping towards the edge. Could he have drowned?

The detective let his head fall to the back of the bed, thinking with his chest tight that he truly didn’t know how to play this game.

***

‘I told you to never come back here!’ Jim screamed, throwing Cobblepot against the wall. He was furious, holding the shaking man by the collar of his shirt. He heard him apologizing, trying with trembling hands to protect his face from any punch Jim could give him. Probably Oswald was more than accustomed to being beaten.

‘I-I apologize,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to speak with you.' From the outside, Oswald looked scared. His voice sounded like he was pleading. But for some reason Jim believed that he might be faking everything. This was his end, Jim thought, terrified; if Falcone discovered that Cobblepot was alive, Jim was going to be in danger,  _Barbara_  was going to be in danger and probably Harvey too. He should have killed Cobblepot, he should have put a bullet in his head, that way he would be safe right now. But then, after releasing Cobblepoot and attempting to return to his apartment, Oswald stopped him. ‘You are a good man,’ was what he said, without doubt in his voice.

Slowly, Jim turned around to see Cobblepot; he was thin and pale, and he walked with a severe limp, wearing a suit like the one he had when Jim pushed him to the water (cheap, but perfectly maintained). Jim could see why some people called him the Penguin; but honestly, he felt uncomfortable with the idea of calling him that. When Jim saw him there, standing at the door of his and Barbara’s apartment, before this horrible rage and fear, he felt relieved. Relieved for knowing that Cobblepot was alive, that he wasn’t a killer. But now this man’s life was putting his own in danger.

Then, Cobblepot started to talk; that appeared to be one of his best talents. He told Jim again about a war and about death, and Jim felt confused, what was this all about? Arkham, Cobblepot had said. Then Jim heard some giggles in the street, and he turned his head towards it. When he returned his gaze to Oswald he wasn’t there anymore. He had left, leaving Jim scared, feeling a knot in his stomach.

***

The next day, Jim woke up thinking about his encounter with Cobblepot last night. He remembered him, pressed against the wall with fear in his eyes and trembling lips, telling him that he knew Jim wasn’t going to shoot him, because he knew Jim was a good man. At this point, Jim was starting to doubt he was. He glanced at Barbara, who was still asleep at his side, curled against the pillow. He knew she was worried, he knew she wanted him to tell her the troubles he was having; he knew she wanted to help. But he just couldn’t tell her all the truth, not even parts of it. He couldn’t live knowing that Barbara saw him as a corrupted man, as part of all Gotham’s broken system, and like all the horrible things inside it. So he had decided to stay in silence, to let the storm disappear for itself. And still Barbara was here with him, despite everything. He smiled and kissed her on the forehead before heading to the bathroom. There, while brushing his teeth, Jim looked at his image in the mirror. He didn’t see a murderer there, or a gangster, or a dirty cop. Even so he didn’t like what he saw, and he didn’t know why. But Cobblepot believed he was a good man. Those had been his exact words. A good man.

Days after that, Jim started to think about Cobblepot occasionally, normally during his shifts; asking himself if he was making a lot of noise in the street, if someone in the mafia already knew about him being alive, and if at some point, this man was indeed going to be the death of him.

***

When Jim answered the phone, he was expecting to hear from Barbara or Harvey. But on the other line, what he heard was the familiar voice of Oswald Cobblepot; he could even see him grinning in front of him, showing those sharp yellow teeth.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, leaning on his desk, not wanting to be heard.

‘I want to prove you can trust me,’ was the answer Cobblepot gave him. Confused, Jim waited until Oswald had finished to ask him why the hell did he know all that about Jim’s case and Maroni’s movements. The response was brief.  _I told you, detective. Gotham is my home._

When Cobblepot hung up the phone, Jim leaned in his chair for a second. This man seemed to have decided to keep getting into his life, and Jim didn’t know why. He didn’t like that, he didn’t like to have a person like Cobblepot as a snitch, giving him information once in a while, because he knew that sooner or later he would have to exchange that for something else.

_…To prove that you can trust me…_

Was that all? The only thing this man was asking of him?

Trust?

Jim frowned, asking himself if he could trust in someone like Oswald.

Avoiding the question, he stood up as fast as he could from his chair. He could think about that later. Now, thanks to Oswald’s information, he knew how to proceed with his case and that was the only thing he had to focus on.

***

Barbara was gone.

She had just gone.

She hadn't accepted more lies. She hadn't accepted being excluded from that part of Jim’s life – his job, where he was almost all day, from whence he came tired and defeated every night, with knots of stress in all his back and wanting to rest, to sleep. She would have stayed, Jim thought, if he had told her all the truth. Who Oswald Cobblepot was, why everyone believed that Jim had killed him, what Jim had done to make them believe that. But if he had told her that, she might have been in danger, she would have known how this city really worked, she would have lost faith in him and in Gotham. He couldn’t have allowed that.

Instead of that, he was back at his old apartment. It wasn’t a bad place. It was near of the center of the city, and it only had one bedroom at the end of the hallway. It had been his first bachelor apartment, and he had lived there for some quiet fun years. It was smaller than Barbara’s, but Jim didn’t complain. It was a peaceful place at least, quiet enough for him to sit and think. The only problem was that he didn’t want to think. Because now when he tried to he ended up thinking about Barbara again, about her eyes, about her hair, abouthow he was feeling lonely, aboutmissing her.

***

‘Hello?’ Jim answered the phone a bit surprised. Few people knew that he was staying in his own apartment now, and it was too early for Harvey’s drunk phone calls.

‘Hi, Jim,’ he heard from the other line, ‘It’s me.’

Jim stood up from the sofa when he recognized the voice. The few times Cobblepot had called him it had always been at his office, while he was working. Answering a call from him from home seemed strange.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cobblepot said, and Jim could see again his grinning face in his mind. ‘I know you must be surprised I’m calling you at home.’

He was right indeed, but even so Jim responded, ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ He sat again on the sofa. He didn’t have to feel alarmed just by a simple phone call. ‘Did you hear anything? Is Maroni planning something?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid I’m not actually calling because of work matters, Jim,’ Oswald responded, making Jim feel confused. ‘Honestly, I just wanted to check on you.’

Check on him?

Jim raised an eyebrow, not quite believing what he was hearing.

‘And why is that so?’ he asked, leaning on the sofa. He was being defensive, and that wasn’t a surprise dealing with someone like Cobblepot.

‘Don’t sound so disbelieving, Jim!’ Oswald laughed on the phone, ‘A person can't call his friend just to ask if everything is alright?’

Jim frowned at that word. Friends?

‘Well, I didn’t know we were friends, Oswald,’ Jim responded, doubtful, not knowing if Cobblepot was playing with him or if there was something more under it.

But then there was a little silence at the other line. Jim started to ask himself if maybe the line had been cut, but he could hear a slight breathing at the other side of the phone. Then he felt mildly guilty; maybe Cobblepot had really meant what he said.

‘I heard that Barbara left,’ Oswald said suddenly, no longer using his cheerful, mocking voice, but a hesitant one.

Jim blinked, perplexed. He breathed in, trying to relax, to not think about how on earth Oswald Cobblepot knew the status of his emotional relationships.

‘Yes, it’s true,’ he responded, trying to sound as neutral as he could.

‘I’m sorry,’ he heard from the other line, and he laughed slightly. ‘Sure you are,’ he responded, not quite knowing if he was sounding sarcastic or not. His voice was followed by a brief silence.

Jim checked the watch on his wrist. It was almost eleven o’clock; he had to go to work in the morning.

‘Listen, Oswald, I’m going to hang…’ he started to say, but he was interrupted by Oswald’s voice at the other line.

‘Jim, I thought you should know…, that I consider us friends,’ he said, sounding serious, not even the hint of a laugh. ‘You saved my life,’ he added, as if this was a great argument - and maybe it was.

Jim didn’t know how he should respond, and probably Oswald noticed this because he finished the call saying ‘Good night, James,’ and then he hung up.

Jim held the phone beside his face some additional seconds, a bit baffled by what he had just heard.

Friends?

***

That night Jim had a strange dream; it was one of those odd, peculiar dreams he used to have when he was a child; those ones that he remembered when he awoke because they were simply very difficult to forget. At the beginning he was in a park, taking a short walk, when he saw Barbara and started to walk towards her. He called her name but she didn’t listen, she kept walking, moving away more and more until she disappeared. Jim stayed where he was, breathing heavily and not knowing what to do. Then he heard it.

_There’s a war coming._

Oswald’s voice started to pound against his ears.

_‘There will be chaos, rivers of blood in the street, I know it!’_

Jim turned around to find Cobblepot some yards from him, standing in that weird way of his that made him look like a penguin, with an umbrella in his right hand. Then he started to talk again, but Jim couldn’t hear him anymore; he knew Cobblepot was warning him about something but he didn’t know what. He remembered screaming  _What? I can’t hear you!,_ without getting an answer. He screamed until the only thing he heard was his own voice, pounding strongly in his ears.

He woke up disorientated, looking for a body at the other side of his bed and not finding it. He sat up in the bed with his eyes open, going over his dream briefly. This was the most vivid one he had had in a while.

He started to dream occasionally about Oswald Cobblepot, not knowing why.


End file.
